Democratic National Convention (1968)

The corner of Market and 55th streets in Oakland is unremarkable in many ways. Rush hour traffic whizzes by modest homes that have become mostly unaffordable for the working class African Americans who once defined the place.

But this intersection holds a unique place in California history. It is the site of the first important social action by the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the revolutionary black power movement founded 50 years ago by Merritt College students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in response to rampant police brutality.

In 1967, after several children from Santa Fe Elementary School were...

Related "Democratic National Convention (1968)" Articles

The corner of Market and 55th streets in Oakland is unremarkable in many ways. Rush hour traffic whizzes by modest homes that have become mostly unaffordable for the working class African Americans who once defined the place.
But this...

This country needs more people like Tom Hayden, motivated citizens who don’t just stand outside the arena and gripe about how the game is played. They go inside and participate.
That has largely gone unmentioned in commentary about the leftist...

It’s been an emotionally tough couple of months for the Los Angeles left. In September, Stanley Sheinbaum, anti-Vietnam War activist and faux-grumpy host of countless liberal gatherings, died in his Brentwood home at 96. On Sunday, Tom Hayden, author of...

Essential Politics October archive
Oct. 31, 2016, 6:15 p.m.
Welcome to the October archive of Essential Politics, our daily feed on California politics and government news. For the latest feed, go here. Be sure to follow...

Bernie Sanders clashed with Democratic Party leaders Tuesday over violence that erupted over the weekend at the Nevada Democratic Convention, which party officials blamed on a disgruntled group of Sanders supporters.
At issue in the...

One of the nuttiest notions being mouthed is that if Donald Trump goes to the Republican convention with the most delegates but doesn’t win the nomination, there’ll be street riots.
You know, riots like at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
...

When 17-year-old John Culhane and three friends motored west from Rockford, Ill., in 1951, it was for much the same reason as legions before them: Someone had a friend who had a friend who knew someone big — someone really big — in Hollywood.
In this...

ABC News was last in the ratings in the summer of 1968, behind NBC's team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite on CBS. It was desperate to gain an edge on the more established networks' news teams.
So ABC decided to try something...

In 1964, broadcast journalist Marlene Sanders became the first woman to anchor an evening network newscast.It was a breakthrough, but more or less accidental. At a time when opportunities were scarce for women in network news, Sanders got the chance to...

Good morning. It is Wednesday, June 3. How good are the reubens and rugelach at Canter's Deli? So good that U2's Bono left a $150 tip on the $20 tab. Here's what else is happening in the Golden State:
Subscribe to the newsletter...

If you look closely at the desk where Scott Pelley anchors the "CBS Evening News," you can spot about a dozen small, framed photographs standing off to his right.
They depict the 13 journalists who have died in the line of duty for CBS News,...

Los Angeles County leaders once thought the world of Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
In a gilt-edged 1992 proclamation that still hangs behind Weinstein's desk, officials declared him "a dynamic and inspirational...

There are episodes of “Mad Men,” like last week’s “The Better Half,” where it’s hard to believe how much is packed into a single hour of television. Then there are episodes like “A Tale of Two Cities,” where you reach the end and think, “That’s it?”...

George S. McGovern, an icon of American liberalism who campaigned for the White House with moral fervor against President Richard M. Nixon and the Vietnam War but lost in a thundering landslide, has died. He was 90. McGovern died Sunday morning while...

CronkiteDouglas BrinkleyHarper: 820 pp., $34.99Walter Cronkite was not inclined to introspection, and historian Douglas Brinkley emulates his subject in this thorough biography of the news broadcaster who in 1972 was declared "The Most Trusted Man in...

Michael DavisBassist for rock band MC5
Michael Davis, 68, the bassist of influential late 1960s rock band MC5, died Friday of liver failure at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, Calif., said his wife, Angela Davis.
The Motor City Five,...

When National Book Award-winning novelist William T. Vollmann went to Japan this spring to report on the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant from inside the contamination zone, he did what any journalist would do. He bought a dosimeter to chart the...

Leonard Weinglass, a crusading lawyer who championed radical and liberal causes and clients in some of the most controversial trials of the 1960s and '70s, including the Chicago 7 and Pentagon Papers cases, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 77.
The...

Warren Christopher, the former secretary of State and eminence grise of the Democratic Party whose achievements in a wide-ranging public career include brokering the Bosnian peace agreement for the Clinton administration and leading an independent...

Joseph L. Alioto, the ebullient, impeccable, energetic and immensely popular two-term mayor of San Francisco once favored for governor and touted as a possible U.S. vice presidential candidate, died Thursday. He was 81.
Alioto, a nationally prominent...